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Stephen King thrills, chills and charms students and book lovers in Savannah

Steve Bisson/Savannah Morning News Best-selling author Stephen King talks to a select group of area university students about writing Sunday afternoon. He later gave the closing address of the Savannah Book Festival to a sold out audience at the Trustees Theater.

Steve Bisson/Savannah Morning News Best-selling author Stephen King talks to a select group of area university students about writing Sunday afternoon. He later gave the closing address of the Savannah Book Festival to a sold out audience at the Trustees Theater.

Steve Bisson/Savannah Morning News Students from Armstrong Atlantic State University, Savannah State University, and Georgia Southern University listen as author Stephen Kings talks about his books and writing.

Steve Bisson/Savannah Morning News Best-selling author Stephen King talks to a select group of area university students about writing Sunday afternoon.

Steve Bisson/Savannah Morning News The line of people waiting to get into the Trustees Theater to see Stephen King extended down Broughton Street to Lincoln Street two hours before the event.

Steve Bisson/Savannah Morning News Best-selling author Stephen King talks to a select group of area university students about writing Sunday afternoon.

In person, Stephen King isn’t nearly as frightening as his books.

A tall, graying man in faded jeans and T-shirt, King delighted two audiences in Savannah Sunday at the Savannah Book Festival. First, he got down to the business of writing with college students at a special session at the Southern Motors Group showroom on Broughton Street.

Then King headed down to Trustees Theater to speak to a packed audience and sign copies of his latest novel, “11/22/63.” At both venues, he told stories and jokes and seemed to enjoy himself as much as his listeners did.

“I started writing stories when I was 8 years old,” King said. “I did it originally because I missed a year of school.”

A severe case of tonsillitis and scarlet fever kept King at home, and he passed the time reading comic books. “I started making up my own,” he said. “Then I started writing my own stories.”

King’s mother always encouraged him. “She said if I would write stories, she’d pay me a quarter a piece,” he said.

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To be a writer, you must be a reader, King told the students. “If you don’t read, you’ll lose some weapons that you need,” he said.

Writing is a tough career to break into. “I started submitting stories to magazines I liked and read — fantasy, science fiction, mysteries,” King said.

“I got used to rejection slips,” he said. “I had a nail and I put the rejection slips on the wall. Eventually, the nail fell off and I started over.”

King’s first sale came at age 19 with a story that earned him $35. “I was insane with joy,” he said. “This was after maybe 600 rejection slips. I screamed the house down.”

Ideas come from everywhere for King. During his senior year of high school, he took a summer job at a mill to help pay for college.

When the mill was cleaned, a coworker told King “There were rats as big as cats.”

“That stuck in my mind,” King said. “Four years later, I was working on the college newspaper,” he said. “I started writing a story called ‘Graveyard Shift.’ In the sub-basement, there were mutant giant rats.”

At the time, King was dating his wife, Tabitha. “She said, ‘This is really gross. I think you could sell it.’” he said.

The story was bought by Cavalier magazine for $200. “I advanced to selling stories for $500,” King said. “I got married and had kids.”

When he couldn’t find a teaching job, King worked in a laundry and pumped gas to pay the bills. One day, when the family car broke down and their daughter was sick, the Kings found themselves in desperate straits.

“We didn’t even have a phone,” King said. “I went to the mailbox and there was an envelope that had as its return address ‘Cavalier magazine.’ My wife said, ‘Please let that be money,’ It was a check for $800.”

Eventually, King found a teaching job and began to write his first novel, “Carrie,” which was bought by Doubleday for $2,500. “My wife asked me, ‘Will there be any more money in this?’” King said. “I said, ‘There might be a paperback sale.’”

On Mother’s Day, 1973, King got a call from his editor, who told him the paperback rights had just sold for $400,000. “I was in our ratty apartment, and I slid down the doorway between the living room and the kitchen,” King said.

“I just walked around the house,” he said. “I decided I had to get my wife a present. Everything was closed but Rexall, so I went in and bought her a hair dryer.”

Despite his success, King is modest and unassuming. “People treat me like a big shot, but I don’t really like it,” he said. “It’s certainly not like I’m treated like a big shot at home.

“There is nothing mysterious about me,” King said. “There is something mysterious about the art of writing. When it comes, it comes. It lifts you up. The hard part is putting your a-- in a chair and getting started.”

At Trustees Theater, Jack Romanos, former president and chief executive officer of Simon & Schuster, told the audience King is “a true publishing superstar. He is one of the few people who really does not need an introduction.”

Romanos noted that King’s “Riding the Bullet” in 2002 was the first ebook. “This was pre-Kindle, pre iPad,” Romanos said. “When it was released, Amazon’s computers crashed.”

As the longtime publisher of King’s novels, Romanos is well aware of King’s power. “His book on writing is a must-read for anyone who wants to write,” Romanos said.

Currently, King is working on a new Dark Tower novel and “Dr. Sleep,” a sequel to “The Shining.”

“I’ve had a lucky life, I’ve been blessed,” King said. “There’s something here that can’t be explained, but what I do is a perfectly rational process. If I can do it, anyone can do it.”

Book fair officials couldn’t have been more pleased. “The reason we’re all here is because we love Stephen King,” said Stephanie Duttenhaver, president of the Savannah Book Festival. “My husband, John, said, ‘If you get Stephen King at the book festival, you’ve hit the big time. Well, ladies and gentlemen, the Savannah Book Festival has hit the big time.”